Judgement / obedience

Weighed, Measured, and Rewarded

Daniel 5.24-28 records, God sent the hand that wrote on the wall, and this is what is written: mene, teqel, and peres. This is what the words mean: “Mene: God has numbered the days of your rule and they don’t add up. “Teqel: You have been weighed on the scales and you don’t weigh much. “Peres: Your kingdom has been divided up and handed over to the Medes and Persians. MSG

 

For every man there lies ahead the judgement of God. This is when we will all stand before Him to give account to Him for how we lived on this earth in obedience to His commands. Most men plan to enter that day hoping their lives were ‘good’ and acceptable to God not based upon what God has said but based upon their own creation of what pleases God. (more…)

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November 10, 2021
evangelism / Judgement

The End Isn’t Coming Soon

Ezekiel 30.1-5 warns, God, the Master, spoke to me: “Son of man, preach. Give them the Message of God, the Master. Wail: “‘Doomsday!’ Time’s up! God’s big day of judgment is near. Thick clouds are rolling in. It’s doomsday for the nations. Death will rain down on Egypt. Terror will paralyze Ethiopia When they see the Egyptians killed, their wealth hauled off, their foundations demolished, And Ethiopia, Put, Lud, Arabia, Libya —all of Egypt’s old allies— killed right along with them. MSG

 

So many believe the end of days are near. So many hope Jesus will return soon. I suppose the latter is Biblical for Paul himself appears to have prayed the same when ending his letters ‘Maranatha.’ This ‘end times’ belief drove Paul to share Christ with the nations. (more…)

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October 12, 2021
evangelism / Judgement / Theology

Do You REALLY Believe These Are The End Times?

Romans 13.11-14 warns, make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work He began when we first believed. We can’t afford to waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don’t loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up and about! MSG

 

So many Christians believe these are the last days, that we are in the end times. So what are they doing? Waiting for Jesus to burst through the skies and end all the misery and suffering in the world? What should they be doing? Paul says here, God says in His word, we should be working not watching. We should be laboring not waiting. (more…)

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August 23, 2021
Christian Living / Judgement / obedience

What It Means To Believe In Jesus

Acts 24.24-26 records, “A few days later Felix and his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish, sent for Paul and listened to him talk about a life of believing in Jesus Christ. As Paul continued to insist on right relations with God and his people, about a life of moral discipline and the coming Judgment, Felix felt things getting a little too close for comfort and dismissed him. “That’s enough for today. I’ll call you back when it’s convenient.” At the same time he was secretly hoping that Paul would offer him a substantial bribe. These conversations were repeated frequently.” MSG

 

In his sharing of the gospel, the Apostle Paul tells us a few key elements of what it means to believe in Jesus. First, is the insisting upon a right relationship with God and His people. A right relationship with God must come through Jesus the Savior. Reconciliation to God comes by faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Apart from faith in Him, there is no peace with God. (more…)

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August 9, 2021
Christian Living / Judgement / obedience

Who Are We Listening To?

Deuteronomy 29.14-21,29 records, I’m not making this Covenant and its oath with you alone. I am making it with you who are standing here today in the Presence of God, our God, yes, but also with those who are not here today. You know the conditions in which we lived in Egypt and how we crisscrossed through nations in our travels. You got an eyeful of their obscenities, their wood and stone, silver and gold junk-gods. Don’t let down your guard lest even now, today, someone—man or woman, clan or tribe—gets sidetracked from God, our God, and gets involved with the no-gods of the nations; lest some poisonous weed sprout and spread among you, a person who hears the words of the Covenant-oath but exempts himself, thinking, “I’ll live just the way I please, thank you,” and ends up ruining life for everybody. God won’t let him off the hook. God’s anger and jealousy will erupt like a volcano against that person. The curses written in this book will bury him. God will delete his name from the records. God will separate him out from all the tribes of Israel for special punishment, according to all the curses of the Covenant written in this Book of Revelation………God, our God, will take care of the hidden things but the revealed things are our business. It’s up to us and our children to attend to all the terms in this Revelation. MSG

 

The sign of our commitment to God is our obedience to the Word of God. Are we Christians? Then like Christ we seek to obey every word that comes from the mouth of our Father. His word is our bread, His will is our food, living His ways are the sign of the abundant, life giving, waters residing within us. (more…)

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June 24, 2021
Christian Living / evangelism / Judgement

What Marketplace Christianity Looks Like

Luke 12.4-5,8-9 commands, I’m speaking to you as dear friends. Don’t be bluffed into silence or insincerity by the threats of religious bullies. True, they can kill you, but then what can they do? There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, Who holds your entire life—body and soul—in His hands………“Stand up for Me among the people you meet and the Son of Man will stand up for you before all God’s angels. But if you pretend you don’t know Me, do you think I’ll defend you before God’s angels? MSG

 

This is how Christians are to live in the marketplace. The answer to the question, what does it mean to be a Christian in the marketplace, is given here. Fear God alone, and make Him known, so that all might come to know Him as God and Savior. Simple but not easy. (more…)

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May 11, 2021
evangelism / Judgement

Christians Are To Live As Warriors

Psalm 144.1 exclaims, praise be to the Lord my Rock, Who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

 

This psalm begins with a praise to God Who prepares David for battle and concludes with a blessing upon the nation that is prosperous and successful because the warrior has been successful thanks to the strength and blessing of God. (more…)

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October 13, 2020
Christian Living / Judgement

The Church Is Responsible For Resisting Abortion

Ezekiel 24.6-7,13 describes, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the city of bloodshed, to the pot now encrusted, whose deposit will not go away! Take the meat out piece by piece in whatever order it comes. For the blood she shed is in her midst: She poured it on the bare rock; she did not pour it on the ground, where the dust would cover it……Now your impurity is lewdness. Because I tried to cleanse you but you would not be cleansed from your impurity, you will not be clean again until my wrath against you has subsided.

 

The American church has the blood of abortion on its hands. Why the church? It is the salt and light of the world, the leaven responsible for infiltrating the whole loaf. This nation was founded by Christians seeking religious freedom. They didn’t worship the same way but they all worshiped the same God. As a result, we had a nation that held Christian values for more than 200 years. (more…)

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September 22, 2020
evangelism / Judgement

Now Is Not The Time To Preach Justice

Lamentations 3.64-66 asks, pay them back what they deserve, Lord, for what their hands have done. Put a veil over their hearts, and may Your curse be on them! Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.

 

Jeremiah watched his city and his nation become destroyed by the enemies of his people. His prayer to God was for God to bring justice against those enemies. We too have many today crying for justice. This often means punishing those who are deemed evil and making reparations to those who are claiming to have been wronged. (more…)

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August 26, 2020
heaven / Judgement

Accountability Occurs in This Life And In The Next

Romans 2.6-10 describes, God will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

 

Judgement awaits every man. All people who believe in God, any god, believe a day of accountability awaits us when we pass from this life to the next. The atheist tries to ignore this inherent knowledge so as to justify their evil behavior and to keep their conscience from condemning their actions. (more…)

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August 13, 2020